Thursday, January 30, 2014

The essence of conservatism is common sense, which is why I
support increasing parcel taxes to fund increased urgent care coverage. In fact,
it’s a pleasure to choose where and how much of our tax money goes for a good
use. Regardless of age, income, family size, or the other factors that divide
and separate us, expanded urgent care coverage benefits us all now and our
futures as we face the needs of aging. Alice and I want to live here as long as
we can; there is no better place we want to move to.

Concerning common sense, the Keystone XL pipeline should be
approved. Pipeline or no, Canada will produce and ship oil from its oil sands somewhere,
somehow. A pipeline is safer and more economical than trains, boats, and
trucks, and won’t be routed through town centers. One negative is that pipelines
produce far less plant-feeding CO2 emissions than other means of transport.
Another is that the Keystone oil will displace heavy oil from the Middle East,
Venezuela, and other areas that do not have Canada’s substantial greenhouse gas
regulations in place. For those who are thick as oil sands, please note that my
negatives are dripping heavy sarcasm, just as foreign oil producers are dripping
oil all over their pristine landscapes.

California has many droughts: in 1953; in the late 1950’s
early 1960’s; the mid-1970’s; from late 1986 to early 1991; and several since
2000 including another five-year drought from 2006 to 2011. However,
Californians have been extremely lucky “since the past century was among the
wettest of the last 7,000 years.”

Common sense indicates we should be aware of all this, but obviously
we’re not since California’s population centers are far from its water sources
and growing rapidly. It’s not climate
change, it’s history.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

In our many and varied travels, Alice and I have seen the
benefits of fossil fuel use, and the struggles to survive without it. For
example, in Tanzania we saw a village that recently was aided by Rotary clubs
donating a manually operated water pump, a great improvement over the previous
need to carry water jugs great distances from the river. However, its users
still hand-pumped the water, then carried water jugs instead of turning on a
faucet in their homes.

We have many colorful pictures of women walking by the road
with jugs, baskets, or bundles balanced on their heads, and not just in Africa.
In Guatemala, India, and in rural areas of Southeast Asia bundles of firewood
as well as jugs of water being carried by women and children were common
sights. In these areas, the vast majority of the population relies on
traditional biomass and waste, mostly firewood and dried cattle dung, for
heating and cooking. With increasing populations, the walks to gather fuel get
longer, and the air in homes and villages exceed our “spare the air” standard
every day.

Given these observations of living lives without the
abundant, easily accessed energy we take for granted, I wasn’t surprised by a
recent study that found that “(T)he benefits of fossil fuel energy to society
far outweigh the social costs of carbon (SCC) by a magnitude of 50 to 500 times.”

It’s common sense, which unfortunately is not commonly found
in the developed world. We would like to preserve the lives of peoples of the
developing world in an imagined pristine Eden, and they would like to live like
us.

We don’t want to live like them, yet are surprised they
don’t either. With economic freedom, Bill Gates thinks by 2035 they won’t have
to.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

It’s fund-raising
time for natural climate change deniers and a photo-shopped image of a polar
bear on a tiny ice floe in a vast ice-free ocean was used as their “poster boy”

Brad Keyes at The
Conversation defended its use: “The problem is, only sensational
exaggeration makes the kind of story that will get politicians’—and
readers’—attention. So, yes, climate scientists might exaggerate, but in
today’s world, this is the only way to assure any political action and thus more
federal financing to reduce the scientific uncertainty.”

Pity the polar bear. Global temperature was up 1°C, Arctic summers were 5°-8°C warmer, and Arctic summer ice
was virtually gone. This occurred annually for thousands of years
130,000-115,000 years ago during the Eemian interglacial, and hit its peak
125,000 years ago. And the polar bear survived.

The polar bear also survived during the recent Holocene
Climatic Optimum, 9,000-5,000 years ago, when Arctic temperatures were similar
to the Eemian period, with substantially less sea ice than the present. And the
polar bear survived.

None of these facts of polar bear survival during previous
warmer, lower sea ice periods, seems to have sunk in with the natural climate
change deniers. Recent periods of greater warmth, higher sea levels, and lower
Arctic sea ice should register something in their feverish minds: our current
warming following the Little Ice Age, the coldest period since the end of the
Ice Age, is modest and unremarkable compared to previous warm periods. Within
the past 10,000 years, the Holocene Climatic Optimum, and the following cooler
Minoan, Roman, and Medieval warm periods were all warmer than the present. And
the polar bears survived them all.